


We Could Be Immortals

by scar-and-boomerang (Y_Woo)



Series: Zukka Week 2020 [5]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: A lot of humor, Aang is still the avatar, Alternate Universe - Demigods, Demigod AU, Demigods, Humor, Humour, I was having so much trouble editing this one, I'm not sure I dig it, Idk this is a weird fic, M/M, Sort Of, They keep their bending, Zukka Week, Zukka week 2020, all of them - Freeform, eh, not a lot of exposition goes into this thing, scientist Sokka, sorry about the late submission, zukka - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22393675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Y_Woo/pseuds/scar-and-boomerang
Summary: Demigod Camp Half-Blood AU - Zuko is a son of Hephaestus with fire(bending) powers, Sokka was the son of Poseidon with no powers, fighting to stay out of his powerful little sister's shadow. This is their story, and (sort of) the story of how Aang, son of Hermes, fulfils his destiny to save the demigods and Olympus from doom at the hands of a certain up-to-no-good sky titan.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Zukka Week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1607521
Comments: 23
Kudos: 496





	We Could Be Immortals

**Author's Note:**

> Day 5  
> Prompt: Mythology  
> Own tags: Modern timeline, demigods AU, 'getting together' story
> 
> Title taken from the lyrics of the song Immortals by Fall Out Boy. Really sorry about the delay in posting, guys, but it's Chinese New Years eve and I was sO busy with my family. I had a fair bit of trouble editing this too, since I don't really dig it all that much and the idea seemed much better at the time than after I executed it into reality. I think trying to squeeze all of this into a oneshot didn't really work, I can easily see this fleshed out into a loooooong slow burn fic. Though I'm not going to do that because I'm not in love with the idea enough.

He was fourteen years old when he set foot in Camp Half-Blood for the first time, younger sister in tow. Well, “set foot in” was a misleading term as it suggested willingness, autonomy. The manner in which he arrived felt closer to “was unceremoniously dumped at”.

It was the day of the summer solstice and Sokka was grumpy. He was grumpy because he had to miss the last two weeks of school. He actually liked school. He worked hard on that evolution of the atomic model display that he now wouldn’t get to present to his physics class because he was plucked from his nice, regular, _scientific_ life and shipped off to some place that hosted mythical children with mythical powers that he would rather have remained mythical.

The place looked eerily and ominously abandoned as they exited the administrative building accompanied by their activities director, the centaur Chiron, (When he first introduced himself Sokka was sorely tempted to nope out of there, go back home _where things made sense_ , and take a nap, because sorry, he’s a _what_ now?), and looked for a camper to show them around.

Eventually they did find a boy sitting in the top rung of an empty amphitheatre, reading a book. He saw them approach, and stood up to face them. The first thing Sokka noticed was the large scar previously obstructed by having his head bowed over the book, it bloomed across the left of his face and around his eyes. He made a conscious effort not to stare, partly because it was was rude, mostly before something about the demeanour of the boy made it clear if he did he would likely be sliced to pieces.

“Ah, Zuko.” Chiron greeted, pleased, and introduced the three campers. “These are our new campers, Sokka and the young Katara. Could you make sure they are all settled into cabin three by the end of the day?”

The way the boy’s — Zuko’s —breath hitched slightly when the centaur (friggin’ _man-horse_ , Sokka was still trying to wrap his head around that part) mentioned cabin three did not slip by unnoticed past Sokka, though to Zuko’s credit he regained composure fast enough.

“Uhm, yea,” he accepted, “sure thing, Sir.”

Chiron thanked him, and trotted (because he was half _horse_ , what on earth?!) away back to his office, no doubt to attend to more important business than continually blowing the absolute mind of a child of science like Sokka.

“So uhm, do you guys want a tour… or?” Zuko asked uncertainly.

“Tour would be nice, yes.” Katara agreed before her brother could announce that what he’d really like is for someone to explain to him the biology and physics of a half-man, half-horse, living creature person, because _yes he was still hung up on that_.

But off they went anyway through the armoury, and round the back of the strawberry fields, while along the way Zuko pointed out places to train and meet and avoid dutifully.

“There’s not a lot of people around here, is there?” Sokka asked casually as they strolled along a large creek through the woods, after Zuko had finished explaining about the occasional dryads — ancient Greek tree fairies, as far as Sokka’s understanding went — which can be spotted around the vicinity.

“It’s the summer solstice, there’s a big meeting up in Mount Olympus between all the gods, and the campers are invited to listen in once every two or three years. Most of them would be there.”

“I’m sorry, did you say _Mount Olympus_?” Sokka demanded incredulously?

“I did say _Mount Olympus_ , yes. It’s where the twelve Olympians stay, it’s at the top of the Empire State Building, sort of.”

“ _Excuse me_?” That really raises more questions than it answers, and Sokka couldn’t believe how calmly Katara was taking all this in right now. Sure, she couldn’t stop blowing up the sink’s water pipe throughout their childhood, but compared with all this madness that would merely be the equivalence of a minorglitch in the system in the face of the entire computer physically exploding in the realms of known physics.

“Look, you get used to it after a while. The rule I go by is, don’t even ask, just accept what you see, and you will see some weird shit go down here every day.”

“How come you aren’t there then?” Katara demanded.

Zuko shrugged dispassionately, “I went two years ago, nothing really exciting happened. I suppose when you are a thousand years old god, nothing exciting ever happens in a year.”

By this time they had already reached the end of the creek to where it entered into the ocean, flanked by a series of small hills on their left, Zuko guided them to turn right along the beach and showed them how it got them back to where they came from. They walked next to the open ocean, which prompted Zuko to ask the questions this time.

“So, you two are children of Poseidon?” He asked offhandedly.

“We have no idea what that means.” Sokka responded at the same time as his sister boasting “I can make toilet seats explode.”

“Poseidon, then. Sea god.” Zuko confirmed, addressing Katara more than Sokka. “Are you guys full siblings?”

“Yeah, why?”

“It’s just that from what I’ve heard, we haven’t had children of one of the big three in a long time, let alone two at the same time. When everyone gets back tomorrow you two are probably going to be pretty big deals.” Their guide informed them, tone not unkindly neutral.

Great, Sokka thought to himself, whatever the hell “the big three” is aside, of course he was going to be singled out again here, why did he ever think that among a group of exclusively mythical and weird children he could blend in for once? He should probably ask Zuko where the arts and crafts station was so he could get to work making a large _Don’t Get Too High An Expectation_ sign for himself to wear.

“So who are you a child of?” Beside him, his sister asked.

Zuko hesitated for a bit, before raising his right hand up in the air, which spontaneously combusted into a ball of flame. “Hephaestus.” He told them, as if that garble of syllables made the situation any less weird.

Katara seemed positively intrigued by the phenomenon, her eyes wide and staring at the heated fire coming off of Zuko’s body in wonder, clearly sharing none of Sokka’s concern about the plausibility of the situation. Where was the fuel? Is the fire literally consuming the carbon in the boy’s skin? In what world does this not shit on the conservation of energy? Can he hook the boy up to an MRI and see what reactions his body was undergoing to sustain this?

So many questions, and the one his genius little sister came up with, was naturally “is that how you got you scar?”

Fire-boy flinched, and extinguished his hand. “No.” He said flatly, and the finality of the tone made Sokka think that it was the last they’d hear about it. But after a minute of silent walking, Zuko spoke up again in elaboration.

“I got it in a house fire that my sister started when she was a kid.” He explained, “my full sister, Azula. She said it was an accident, everyone believes her, I don’t. It was the same fire our mother died in. Everyone at camp already know about it anyway, and I’d rather you hear it from me than from camp rumours.”

“I’m sorry.” Katara offered, having at least the good conscience to look guilty about her invasion of privacy.

“Well, here’s your cabin. They’re organised by godly parent, so you live with your half-siblings. Which also means you two will be the only resident of cabin three. Breakfast starts at eight, tomorrow someone will get you your time tables, and show you to the armoury to get fitted with weapons and armours for training. It’s probably going to be one of the Hephaestus kids, they’re the smiths around here.”

“Aren’t you a Hephaestus kid?” Sokka pointed out skeptically, stumbling to pronounce the name in a replica of how Zuko said it.

The taller boy shrugged. “Yeah, but I’m an odd case. I don’t enjoy tinkering and know next to nothing about weaponry. You’d have more chance getting a daughter of Aphrodite to find you the right stuff.”

The jab was met by blank stares from the two newcomers, who had not yet grasped the significance of demigodly traits from each deity. “Right.” Zuko sighed, dejected, “well, happy first day, I guess.”

With that, he stalked off, presumably back to the amphitheatre to retrieve the book he left there and get back into it.

* * *

Katara’s power of water manipulation grew day by day under the careful guidance of Chiron and a couple older Athena children who specialised in teaching the development of supernatural potentials. Sokka, on the other hand, still had no godly magic whatsoever.

He wasn’t surprised. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened to him his entire life unless his sister was nearby. In fact, he was more surprised at being declared a demigod as well, because if anyone convinced him of someone in the family being of mythological deity descent, his money would be on Katara and Katara alone.

Part of him was relieved, as well, because if there’s any solace to be found among the wide array of _batshit crazy_ he had been experiencing around him for the past couple weeks, it’s that at least the unholy (or he supposed, in this case, _extremely_ -holy) voodoo wasn’t coming from himself. Because if he, a man of science, started sprouting water tentacles or whatever, that may just be the last straw for him to fling himself off a cliff.

It didn’t mean the expectant, pitying, or sometimes downright disdainful looks the other campers fixed him with weren’t heavy to bear, though. He knew what they all thought. _The son of Poseidon with no powers. The child of the almighty Elder God, less threatening than the majority of the rest of us. The useless brother of the prodigy child._

He threw himself into training with his sword, picking up any other weapons he could find, too. Bow and arrow, check. Spear and lance, check. A dusty old boomerang he’d found down the back of a shelf in the supply closet that he asked one of the weapon-smiths to fix up to usable standard, check. If he couldn’t wash those judgemental holier-than-thou looks off the campers’ faces with gravity-defying water, he was going to personally punch them off with his very scientific, _mortal_ fists, thank you very much.

Which was why he was so riled up and down to fight by the time their first Capture the Flag game rolled around.

“Hey.” A vaguely familiar voice called out casually behind him as he was strapping amour plates into place, already almost perfectly skilled at the process and movements. “I see that you are settling in alright, then.”

Sokka turned around to see the boy with the face scar who showed them around on the first day and since hadn’t really spoken to. Occasionally he’d glanced the other at group events or dinner, but he mostly kept to himself save for a couple close friends, and didn’t really mix with the rest of the camp.

“Hey, Zuko, right? Yeah, all the crazy has gotten a lot easier to take in.” A lie, all the crazy has decidedly not gotten any less concerning and mental breakdown inducing.

“Good, I’m glad. It’s Sokka, right? Where’s your sister?”

Prompted by the question, Sokka looked around the clutters of campers on their team. The Poseidon cabin had been assigned to the red team today, and joining them were the Ares, Hephaestus, and Aphrodite cabin, to face of the other team of Athena, Apollo, Hermes, and Demeter. He spotted Katara after no small amount of trying, not used to seeing the girl in armour. She was standing a little off in the distance, talking to a tall boy with unruly hair and a piece of sage stalk between his teeth who looked like he was up to no good.

Zuko agreed to the judgement, when he pointed the two out to him. “Uh oh. That’s Jet, he’s a year-rounder here and the head of the Ares cabin. I don’t make a habit of imposing my judgement on other people, but you may wish to prevent your sister from falling in with the wrong sort.”

The son of Poseidon nodded, and considered how to pry Katara away from the boy. Before he had a chance to act, however, Jet spoke up and called everyone around to him, removing the need for Sokka’s intervention.

“Everyone gather round!” He called out, “let’s go over assignments and positions for this round.”

“Who died and made _you_ king?” A snide voice challenged from the crowd. The turning of heads pinned the source of the remark to a young girl about Katara’s age, who was sporting a smirk and a pair of self assured eyes as golden as Zuko’s.

“As the head of my cabin, I’m leading this team, Azula. If you have an issue following my proposal, you can take it up with the rest of the team.” Jet replied smoothly. Sokka wasn’t certain, but he was pretty sure he recognised the name from Zuko’s orientation to be that of his sister, the pyromaniac. He wondered why Jet wasn’t crispy yet.

Receiving no further dissent, Jet launched into his tactical briefing. “Right, so the other team has the long range archers, they’ll want to set up base somewhere elevated. My bet will be on Zeus’s fist, that’s where they will put their flag. If we play numbers, the archers will take us down. We will need agile, solo fighters to form a strike team to retrieve the flag. Mai, Ty Lee, Katara, and Azula, you girls will be our main attack force. The Ares cabin will back you, while the rest of the Hephaestus cabin defend our own flag. The children of Athena and Hermes are all team players of tactic and formation. If you base yourselves deep in the heart of the woods, you’ll break them up so they wouldn’t be able to play to their strengths.”

The rest of team murmured their agreement, and started breaking up to get to their posts. Before he thought better of it, Sokka raised his voice to draw attention to himself.

“What do I do?” He demanded, more confused than defensive.

Jet looked him up and down, and, much to Sokka’s shock and fury, he sneered. “You’re Katara’s brother, right? The kid with no powers? Clearly you drew the short end of the deal, my dude. Just do whatever, I guess. Stay out of everyone’s way, and let the big boys handle this.”

The tips of his ears flushed hot as he spluttered out an incoherent protest. Sokka hated that his immediate reaction was to look to his sister for help, and hated even more that he recognised a sad pity on her face, but no trace of anger or outrage on his behalf.

A couple of the Ares children snickered, but most of the campers at least had the good graces to look a little uncomfortable at his treatment.

“And what, pray tell, are you powers, brother mine?” A tall girl with dark straight hair twirling a short throwing knife between her fingers asked in a low, apathetic voice behind Jet, and was promptly ignored by the boy whom she called brother. Sokka didn’t recognise her, but Zuko nodded in her direction out of gratitude.

“Jet’s a jerk.” Zuko told him, voice thick with accusation, and placed a hand on Sokka’s shoulder. “You can come with the rest of us to guard the flag. We’ll need the help.”

Despite incident, Sokka was in a decently good mood when they got far enough into the game once he discovered that he could hold his own against most challengers from the opposing team. Their side mainly stuck close together, each occupying their own tree and jumping out at the oncoming bands of Athena or Hermes kids weaving their way through the woods.

Just as Jerk — sorry, Jet — had predicted, the dense forest terrain meant they couldn’t effectively use the battalion formation, forced to break into smaller bands that were easy to pick apart, and it seemed the Apollo had taken up defence leaving the rest of the team to head the offence.

Then the ground started to rumble.

“Prepare thyselves, Hades-fuckers!” A shrill voice called out as a chasm manifested under Sokka’s feet, prompting him to yelp and jump onto solid ground just in time to see several boulders being launched at Zuko’s head.

“Who’s that?” He called out to his teammate.

“That’s Toph.” Zuko yelled back, ducking slabs of earth and rolling himself closer to Sokka, “daughter of Demeter, but she doesn’t control plants like the most of them, she can control the literal earth itself.”

“How have I never heard of her before?” Sokka demanded, because surely, _surely_ , a camper this terrifying had bound to crop up occasionally in campfire gossip, right? How had no one died of concussion yet in the weeks they had been there?

Zuko never did get to answer, because a small hill materialised from under his feet and catapulted him into the air. Dodging all seven hells worth of flying soil and stone unleashed around him, Sokka took after Zuko.

“She’s scattering us and tearing apart our defence! We’ve got to hold her off before someone else gets through and access our flag.” He informed Zuko and a couple of his half-brothers who had huddled up behind a particularly large tree trunk at this point. True to his words, another Demeter girl who helped instruct Sokka’s sword fighting class — Suki — was sneaking by as he spoke, only to be stopped by one of their own.

“We can’t hold her off forever.” A young, stocky boy from the Hephaestus cabin expressed worriedly from beside Zuko.

“We won’t have to, just long enough for attack side of our team to stop sitting on their asses and capture the damned flag already. Can’t you light yourself on fire and run around her or something?” Sokka addressed Zuko this time, as he was one of the extremely few children of the god of fire who possessed the ability of combustion.

Zuko stared. “What good will that do?”

“I dunno, blind her?”

“She’s already blind, Sokka.”

“She’s what? And this is somehow information you thought I could do without? How does she keep finding us?”

“Something to do with seismic senses, I would imagine.”

“Okay, okay. I can work with that.” Sokka said, mind turning rapidly. The whole ordeal with the geokenesis would just have to be temporarily repressed until he could process them later along with all the other supernatural nonsense, when he had access to a therapist trained in deity figure drama. “Here’s what we’re going to do…”

Coming up with the plan in theory was one thing, executing it was its introverted, elusive, mood-swinging cousin of a thing. At least Zuko was as good as a ninja as his half-brothers boasted, Sokka had to give it to him, as he swung across treetop branches smoothly, positioned himself directly over the earth-wrecking girl (did anyone think it was worth mentioning to Sokka that she was _eleven_ and _toddler-height_? Apparently not).

This only bought them a split second margin to act, two children of Hephaestus, a tall, broad-shouldered girl and a boy of about Zuko’s build flanked the daughter of Demeter, and swiped her off her feet, attaching her to the nearest tree feet-up and dangling by the ankle from the branches with a noose-like construction Sokka whipped together, because _in your face_ , Katara, his trusty gut told him the roll of rope would come in helpful today.

Losing touch with the earth, Toph was cut off from her powers as she hung like a bright green cocoon in midair, cursing profanities into the void.

By the time Sokka and Zuko caught up to their flag base, Suki had already almost made it.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” Sokka apologised not-so-sincerely as he tackled the other girl to the ground and blocked two blows she dealt him with her sword while lying of her back, “you don’t have any freaky powers like your sister back there, do you?”

“Afraid not, doesn’t mean I can’t still kick your fish-smelling ass.” The girl told him in jest.

They parried back and forth while Zuko fended off two Hermes kids at once with his oriental dual swords. It took all of Sokka’s concentration to not slip up and open himself to the flurry of attacks lashed upon him at an ungodly speed, but Suki clearly had efforts to spare to quip about his footwork and stance like she always did when she instructed him in training.

“You’re getting better by the day, young Padawan,” she said and if it weren’t for his lungs burning from wheezing to try and keep up with the other warrior’s pace, Sokka could have shouted with joy at the first reference he’s heard in a month that was not related to Greek mythology. “But you can’t keep this up forever.”

Ever the lover of dramatic timing, the horn blew from the other demigods in the distance.

“Luckily, I won’t have to.” Sokka declared with a cheeky grin. “Sounds like we won.”

He walked back to camp side by side with Zuko, both grinning from their victory. As they were passed by members of the red team who came up to pat them both on the back and congratulate them on the job they did defending the flag.

“That was quite the tactic you pulled back there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone own Toph like that in all my years here.”

“Thanks. Couldn’t have worked without those mad ninja skills of yours. I don’t think I could ever scale a tree like that, I’m afraid of heights.”

“But you are handy with a sword.” Zuko complimented easily, “I saw you taking on Suki just now, and I don’t think many people can go toe to toe with her for so long in their first year. She wasn’t taking it easy on you either.”

“You weren’t so bad yourself, with your two fancy swords.” Sokka offered back, softly bumping his shoulders against the other boy’s. Their armours made a soft clank as they collided together, ringing in the silence of the woods around them as they were the last campers left behind.

“Dual swords. And I could spar with you, if you want. In our free time out on a beach. I mean, you’re already learning pretty fast but it can never hurt to get an extra edge in, and you seem pretty determined to make a name for yourself here.”

“I am.” The son of Poseidon admitted truthfully, though not sure what to make of the fact that it was so obvious to the other boy after such a short period of time. Still, he extended his hand, which Zuko took in a half handshake, half high-five. “And thanks for the offer, I think I just may take you up on it.”

He didn’t mention that the fact that he’ll get an excuse to hang out more with Zuko was just another plus, and a big one at that.

By the time they made it back to the main camp, the campfire had already been set up, and campers had stashed away their armour and gathered round, passing out s’mores ingredients and that night’s setlist for the singalong.

A single voice rang clear over the sea of quiet conversational murmur. “Hey, has anyone seen Toph tonight?”

Zuko and Sokka eyed each other nervously, remembering the young girl they had most likely left still dangling from the tree back in the forest.

“…Shit.”

* * *

The first time Zuko went on a quest, Sokka didn’t come with him.

It was Sokka’s second year at Camp Half-blood, and Zuko’s fourth. He’d received the prophecy first in the form of a dream, and requested to lead a quest the next morning with the Oracle. The campers have been gathered, and he was asked to pick his companions.

Zuko scanned the faces in the crowd, and didn’t take too long to ponder the options before he made his choice. “Sokka and Toph.” He declared.

The tense silent of campers eagerly awaiting to hear his decisions broke into animated murmur. It was an unconventional pick, Zuko knew. Sokka had no powers and Toph was twelve. But it was also justified to anyone who had half a brain. Toph was probably one of the most powerful demigod at camp, and by then Sokka had already proven himself a valuable asset with his knack for tactics where his supernatural capabilities fell short.

Plus, it was no secret he was Zuko’s best friend, and their weekly sparring session had become quite the legend and attraction among campers both summers at the camp.

He looked to Chiron to indicate that they were free to go and get ready. The centaur pondered it for a moment, before shaking his head gently. “No.” He declared.

The host of campers who had just managed to settle down descended into chaos once more. “Look, if it’s because of my age,” Toph started, only to be silenced by the activities director raising a hand, before explaining himself to the now-attentive campers and their quest leader.

“This will be a dangerous quest in which you will be facing many mythological threats with powerful supernatural abilities. While it is a mission of wits, a full set of elements will be more in your interest than Sokka’s admittedly impressive intelligence. If it is the grace of Poseidon you wish, take Katara with you alongside Toph.”

Zuko looked over to the stunned faces of both Sokka and Katara, the former with a hint of humiliation and outrage, the latter trying her best to hide her joy, and could only nod silently.

He found Sokka sitting at their usual meeting spot on the beach later that day, legs draw up on the sand, staring at the ocean. He walked up to sit next to him without saying anything, letting the wind blow on both their faces, shoulders pressed together slightly.

“I’m sorry.” He offered after a while. Sokka just smiled softly and shook his head.

“You have nothing to apologise for.” He told him, voice heavy and resigned in a way that shouldn’t be possible for his age. “For what it’s worth, thank you for picking me. But Chiron is right, you’ll have more of a shot than Katara.”

“We’ll fight side by side one day.” Zuko promised him.

“I know. When do you leave?”

“In an hour. We catch the ship out from the seaport.”

Sokka nodded, looking up at the older boy, still just a teenager himself, and tried not to think about him leading two little girls across the country to take on whatever unknown challenges on a crazy quest he still couldn’t really wrap his head around. He knew that there was no better candidate than Zuko, but that didn’t stop him from worrying.

“Just look after Katara for me out there, okay?” He asked him, standing up. Zuko nodded solemnly and rose after him. “And… come back to me safe.”

“I will.” Zuko vowed, tone serious, but face spreading into a teasing grin which warmed Sokka’s heart so suddenly it sent tingles down his spine, “couldn’t have you replace me with another sparring partner, could I?”

Sokka did not come to see them off, choosing to say goodbye to his little sister back in their own cabin. He was afraid that if he went to stand there, in the front row among the campers, watching the back of Zuko with the dual blades strapped across it, disappear down the hill and into the thick woods, a part of him would be ripped away with too.

* * *

They ended up in a cage made of ice, in the middle of a frozen tundra and a deadly snowstorm, because of course they did. Of course the lost hero or whatever they were searching for was trapped in an iceberg and guarded by a psychopathic cryo-maniac goddess, where Zuko was too busy shivering to summon any fire, where the entire terrain was too frozen over for Toph to find a single soil particle, and where anything Katara hurled was instantly frozen.

They’d barely scraped survival over and over again for weeks, all to end up in a frozen cage inches away from accomplishing victory, about to be frozen into not-very-aesthetically-pleasing ice sculptures.

No. Nope. If there was one thing that Zuko was it was stubborn, and he was too stubborn to let Khione, the only lady he’d ever met that could rival the madness of Azula on her worst days, get in the way of accomplishing his first quest. He was getting out of this cage, taking both girls and the prisoner they’d come here to look for with him, and going back to where it was warm and nice and he could summon more than a faint smoulder.

 _Think_ , he told himself, _what would Sokka do?_ He would science and logic and tactic the _shit_ out of this, that’s what he would do.

“Katara,” he said slowly, “snow is basically water, right? Try to focus on that and pull on individual water molecules to manipulate it, just like back you learnt to control water for the first time. Toph, we’re still on land, which means underneath all this snow there’s got to be some earth you can work with. Push your limits and see if you can find something.”

Toph nodded while Katara set to work trying to pull apart their cage. “And what about you? I don’t think you can find any hidden fire around here.”

A geeky, loud voice rung through his mind, clear over the haze from the cold, “—m serious, you defy the law of physics. Energy is always conserved and I just don’t see how you’re sustaining the energy source of your combustion without burning any fuel. Please, _please_ for the love of the atom at the tip of Poseidon’s trident let me stick some sensors onto you and chuck you into an MRI machine. For Olympus and for science?”

His eyes snapped open. Sokka, you goddamned genius bastard. If you didn’t talk so much everyone has evolved to tune you out you’d have saved lives two million times over by now.

“Fire takes energy. I can’t produce flames when I’m cold because the cold is draining all my energy so I can’t channel it into combustion. I just need to find a way to bypass that and coax my body into releasing more energy which I then put directly into my flame.” He explained, following up on Sokka’s reasoning from weeks ago.

With that, he stood up and started star-jumping on the stop, thanking Zeus that Toph was blind and Katara was too concentrated on trying to pull apart the ice bars to notice how stupid he looked.

In the end, it did take all three of them to take Khione down. With a deep rumble that ran miles beneath their feet, Toph launched an attack with frozen earth that forced Khione into the air as a flurry of snowstorm. Channelling all her concentration, Katara thrust her hands out to suspend the transformed snow goddess in midair, and Zuko sent out a fire blast, feeling the energy drain from the pit of his stomach and into the tundra air.

What was once the evil lady dropped onto the ground in a puddle of steaming water unceremoniously.

“Dear Hades, wicked witch of the west much?” Katara remarked, spreading the water out thin before it froze over for good measure. Behind them, the iceberg made a loud moan, and cracked open in a thunderous boom.

A little boy who looked no older than Toph fell out, unconscious.

The beads the campers got at the end of the summer sported a symbol of an arrow to represent the one on Aang’s — the boy Zuko, Toph, and Katara rescued — head. There was an air of celebration for a successful quest, but they also brought home an air of unease.

Aang was a son of Hermes, trapped in the north of Alaska by the snow goddess for a hundred years, (Sokka lost his entire mind when he heard about that and demanded they hand him over to a mortal laboratory for research immediately), and was prophesied to be the chosen one who can defeat an impending invasion by Ouranos, the titan of the sky.

Which was great. Just great.

When Zuko was congratulated for the successful quest, he made sure to let it be known that it had been Sokka’s advice and wisdom that had helped all of them survive the final showdown, and that even though he wasn’t there with them physically, they couldn’t have accomplished it all without him.

Most of the campers looked skeptical at best, and Azula snickered maliciously, but hey, it was the truth, and Zuko believed in giving credit where it was due. Plus the warm grin on his best friend’s face made it clear to him that he made the right call.

“Hey.” Sokka jogged up to him after the assembly when they had all been dismissed to pack for the end of the summer and their year outside in the mortal world and regular school, save for the year-rounders. “Did you mean what you said back there, or did you just want to rub it into their faces?”

Zuko shrugged, not bothering to stop walking, “why can’t it be both?”

“Either way, that was pretty solid of you, thanks. And thanks for looking out for my sister out there. What you guys did was legendary.”

“You heard me, couldn’t have done it without you.” Zuko replied, grinning. “Still though, that’s some pretty heavy prophetic stuff. What do you reckon is going to happen?”

“Honestly, I’m still just trying to wrap my head around the hundred-year-old twelve-year-old thing. You said all the crazy will get better with time, but it’s been two years and I don’t think it’ll ever get easier for a devout scientist like me. Too many unknowns, it’s bad for my anxiety.”

“Well you know what isn’t unknown? This.” Zuko said, bumping his shoulder against Sokka’s the way they always did with each other. “To more sparring sessions next year?”

“To more sparring sessions next year.” Sokka echoed, raising his bead with a little blue arrow on it and touching it lightly to Zuko’s identical one.

* * *

The first time Sokka went on a quest, Zuko didn’t come with him.

It started at the beginning of the following summer, when some Apollo kid woke everyone up wailing and darting around camp like a headless chicken, flailing her arms and screaming bloody murder about a vision she’d received about the impending invasion.

The one where the literal sky is going to attack them. The one everyone had forgotten about for the past ten months, while they were getting on with their lives and trying their hardest to pass calculus class. The one that made them all collectively go “oh shit yes that’s a thing” upon hearing about it just then.

The daughter of Apollo told a nightmare-inducing tale of monsters descending from the sky, and while Aang did his best in the air, taking on the titan solo with a constructed mechanical glider and his power of air, the rest of them were confined to the ground, and could barely hold their own against the aerial onslaught, being picked off one by one by harpies and strixes and other gods-know-what.

Sokka set to work designing flying suits that day, because anyone with half a tactical mind could tell that the problem with the disastrous vision was the high ground ( _ay, Obi-Wan Kenobi_ ). If they wanted a chance to win this, they had to get as many fighters into the air as possible.

Easier said than done, though. After an entire day exempt from activities to tinker, draw, and calculate his ass off (thank the gods he decided to take AP maths and physics at age fifteen, because social lives were overrated anyway), and he’d accomplished nothing except ruin his entire childhood. Because the Iron Man suit? Physically impossible.

But then again neither was the entire sky growing sentience and deciding that the best use of his time is to bully and violently slaughter teenagers, so hey.

The answer, eventually, came to him in a dream. And it wasn’t a Eureka! moment of science, but naturally another weird mythological thing he would just have to deal with, because gods exist and had decided that the best use of _their_ times is to fuck with teenagers’ minds.

“Pegasus.” He declared the next morning to Chiron in his office, “or rather, _Pegasi_. A whole legion of them, one for each camper, so when the time comes we’ll have level ground with the invading army and hopefully gain some tactical advantage.”

The quest was announced that afternoon, and Sokka stood in front of the camp, and picked Suki and Ty Lee. Unlike Zuko’s quest, he wasn’t anticipating a battle, but instead an efficient stealth and tracking mission. Demigods with no powers were much less conspicuous, and he trusted the girls’ skills to get them out of any unforeseen troubles.

Unlike Zuko’s quest, his choices were approved without protest.

He found Zuko sitting at their usual meeting spot on the beach later that day, stood waiting for him with a grin on his face.

“I’m so proud of you.” He told him, drawing the son of Poseidon into a bear hug. “You’re gonna kick ass on this quest, and you’re gonna prove yourself, not just when you make it back, but also when you help us win this invasion.”

Sokka returned Zuko’s wide smile. “You were the first to believe in me, thank you.” He told him earnestly, “only regret is you don’t get to come with me, man. But you know I have to think about what’s best for the mission. Not that you’re not competent or anything because you are the best, but—“

“Hey, don’t. I get it.” Zuko said understandingly, “like I told you, we’ll fight side by side one day, when destiny decides it’s time. Just come back to me safe, okay?”

Zuko did, however, come see them off at the boarder when they left, whooping and cheering like a maniac while fending off his sister’s irritated jabs to his ribcage, and ignoring anyone who looked at him funny.

* * *

Of course these magical winged dick horses would have them go all the way across the US of A to find them, in Olympia Spring, Washington, right on the edge of the coastline, the _opposite_ coastline than where they were in the country. 

And of course these just happened to be the most stuck up, douchebag horses he’d ever met (and his sister took horse riding for a while when she was nine, so the bar was set pretty high for that one, though admittedly he couldn’t talk to horses back then.)

“No.” One of the pack of Pegasi told him.

“No?” Sokka asked incredulously.

“That’s what I said. No. We will not help you.”

“Did you hear what I said at all? The sky collapsing in on itself, people die. Mortals die. Demigods being plucked off the ground by Ouranos’s army like little rats by owls and the reign of the gods will be over.”

“I fail to see that’s any of our concern.” Another horse stalked over and loomed over Sokka with its white and brown patterned body.

“I guess I didn’t anticipate you guys to be such assholes.” Sokka grumbled, “you guys are our only chance of winning and I didn’t come all this way across the country, almost got turned into stone by Medusa, battle a legion of hellhounds, and bungee jump off a cliff to be turned down by your snobby hindquarters.”

“Honestly, this all sounds like more of a you-problem.”

He was cut off in the middle of a sentence that used a string of lewd words his mother would be absolutely ashamed of by a chimera.

If someone had told him defeating a chimera was what it took to convince the herd of jerk Pegasi to help them out, he’d have tracked the hell-beastthat almost took all three of their lives down much, much earlier before standing there to be humiliated by this host of equestrian douches.

At least with the winged horses on their sides, the journey back had been so much faster. They even made it home in time for Sokka’s favourite dinner, and I was almost worth the terrifying flying at a great height with literally no safety precautions.

* * *

When the big day came the following summer, Sokka still didn’t get to fight by Zuko’s side. The latter was don in dark red armour, a hand next to the mane of a lean, brown winged horse and his dual swords strapped across his back. The former, on the other hand, had chosen to stay below on the ground and coordinate their forces via radio instead of joining the two hundred or so campers ready to defend Olympus.

They set up base in Washington D.C. (“I thought you said Olympus was in the Empire State building? That’s in New York.” Sokka asked Zuko incredulously the night before they headed out, “What do they want in D.C? Trump?”) and assembled the formation ready to take off in the air.

Sokka had just finished fussing over his sister when Zuko approached them. Katara gave him a friendly nod, before going off to report to her position with her dark grey horse.

“I, uhm, wanted to see you before I took off.” Zuko said. Sokka thought he sounded nervous (more nervous than he should have sounded for someone about to go off to fight in a large scale supernatural battle, if that was even possible)

“I’m glad you came, I wanted to tell you to be careful, and all that.” Sokka said while tugging on wires and command switches in his makeshift communication board.

“Yeah, thanks. I wanted to talk to you about something else though.” Zuko pressed on, face flushing faintly as he gabbed his best friend’s hands to get his attention from the command desk, “look, I…uhm. There’s a chance I may have read the signs all wrong, and am about to make a horrible mistake, but I may not make it back today and if something happens I’d regret not taking the risk so much so uhh, I— mmph.”

The confession was cut off by Sokka suddenly pressing his lips to Zuko’s. A couple campers nearby from the Hermes and Apollo cabin whooped in the background as Zuko leaned in to kiss him back, and the two boys became tangled in hands and arms clinging at each other’s necks and cupping the other’s face. A vague voice shouted “about time!” somewhere behind them.

“Is that what you wanted to do?” Sokka asked when they finally had to break apart for breath, much to the regret of the both of them.

“Yes.” Came the breathless reply.

“Good, now you can leave me to my work and go kick some ass.” He commanded bossily, but with an air of jest and no real seriousness. “And this doesn’t give you the permission to die, by the way. This,” Sokka gestured between their lips, “this is merely put on hold.”

He watched him mount his Pegasus and flew off into the air, dual swords aflame, and tried to swallow down the worried lump in his throat and tear his attention from the sky back down to his work, guiding Zuko and about two hundred other fighters through the battle.

* * *

They didn’t have the time to catch each other before they were whisked away to Mount Olympus for their “well done for saving the day while we get to chill on our thrones and eat popcorn and enjoy being dickheads, slave-bodyguard-children of ours!” meeting with the gods, where each warrior who had made significant contributions was called to stand in front of them and presented with their reward.

“Come forth, Aang, son of Hermes.” Zeus called the thirteen year old hero up to honour him for dealing the final blow to the sky titan and ending the battle after almost two days of fighting, “you have shown the qualities and responsibility of a true hero. To aid you in further realising your potential, the gods grant you the elemental powers of water, earth, and fire in addition to your existing control of air.”

The entire host of demigods gathered stared at the grinning boy in awe, no one in the history of Camp Half-blood had ever had powers outside of the realms of their own godly parent, let alone three full sets of powers. There were a few scattered claps from uncertain people, which died rather quickly and awkwardly.

Next, Katara was called forth for her heroism and display of raw power in the battle, and was gifted with the permission to keep her pegasus, with whom she had bonded rather quickly and named ‘Appa’ (much to the chagrin of her brother, who felt mildly nauseated at the prospect of spending a second more with those arrogant, obnoxious horses).

“Come forth, my son, Sokka.” It was Poseidon’s voice who called him forward. It was the first time Sokka had really seen his godly father, and call him biased, but he thought Poseidon was the chillest out of all the gods there, with his Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts and sandals, and the mild twinkling eyes and beaded beard. He looked almost like a cool sailor, or seasoned fisherman.

“Though you haven’t been at the camp for long, you’ve managed to display impressive tactical thinking and intellectual potential. You came up with the idea of using my winged horses, and singlehandedly took command of the operation. For such displays of leadership material, I offer you a place by my side as general of my army for millennia to come.”

“Wait…” Sokka knew he should be trying to sound more intelligent in front of the god who just praised him for the very quality, but his brain was fried at this point and he couldn’t manage a straight sentence if he tried. “Millennia?”

“Yes, you will be granted immortality, to serve beside me and lead my finest troops into all future battles. You will go down in legends, my son.”

He wanted to ask his old man where his _legendary troop_ was during the battle they just fought through, but he also enjoyed no being a strand of seaweed.

Sokka’s head spun. He looked around behind him, at all the stunned faces who had run out of whispers to pass along behind his back. The demigod boy of Poseidon with no powers… now he was granted the most powerful gift of them all, immortality, the status of practically a deity, he could finally rub it in all their faces and prove them wrong.

His eyes settled on Zuko, and he bit the lips that had been pressed to the other boy’s the day before, and made his choice.

“My ability to solve the problems thrown at us for the past couple of years stems from my creativity, scientific training, and resilience.” He turned to the host of Olympians once more and told them, wording the answer carefully for even he knew better than to outright reject the gift of a deity, lest he offended any of them, “qualities which ultimately I possessed because I was mortal. I fear that in accepting your proposal, I will lose the very thing you chose me for. So with your permission, I’d like to continue to serve Olympus and the camp as a mortal.”

* * *

The next day, when they were all back at Camp Half-Blood, got a good night’s rest, and commenced to honour the fallen and celebrate their victory, Sokka sneaked away from the dining hall where everyone were treating him with a cautious and fearful respect, and headed to his and Zuko’s spot on the beach.

Sure enough, the other boy was there already, looking out at the ocean.

“Hey.” He said, taking up a seat next to Zuko and sat with him, just like they always did, with their shoulders pressed slightly together.

“That took balls, what you did. Balls that I and a whole bunch of other people never will possess.”

Sokka shrugged, “honestly, I’m still trying to process through it all. I’m sure one day in the near future I will bolt upright in cold sweat at night and realise how close I came to being turned into a puddle of salty seawater.”

“Is it bad that a part of me wished you would say no even before you even answered?” Zuko confessed sheepishly.

“There was never really any question for me which I would choose.” Sokka told him.

“Oh really? And why is that?”

A kiss, placed firmly on Zuko’s lips, holding there until he started pushing back gently, the two tangled together like the waxing and waning dynamics of the waves on the beach.

“The same reason you wished me to stay.” The mortal son of Poseidon said, “and I’m not going anywhere until we get to fight by each other’s side finally.”

“Hmm.” The son of Hephaestus hummed in agreement, “hopefully a long, long time into the future though, I don’t want to redo the last couple of days anytime soon.”

“In the meantime, there are always better things to keep us occupied.”

“Something tells me we’re going to be doing a lot less sparring next summer.” Zuko quipped, and the two got back to their kiss.


End file.
